Issue 10, 2012
From the journal:

Nanoscale

Free-standing graphene on microstructured silicon vertices for enhanced field emission properties

Emmanuel Stratakis,*abc   Goki Eda,†d   Hisato Yamaguchi,e   Emmanuel Kymakis,b   Costas Fotakisaf  and  Manish Chhowallae  

* Corresponding authors

a Institute of Electronic Structure and Laser (IESL), Foundation for Research and Technology-Hellas (FORTH), Heraklion, Crete, Greece
E-mail: stratak@iesl.forth.gr

b Electrical Engineering Department and Center of Materials Technology & Photonics, School of Applied Technology, Technological Educational Institute of Crete, Heraklion, Crete, Greece

c Department of Materials Science and Technology, University of Crete, 710 03 Heraklion, Crete, Greece

d Imperial College London, Dept. of Materials, London, UK

e Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Rutgers University, 607 Taylor Road, Piscataway, New Jersey 08854, USA

f Department of Physics, University of Crete, 714 09 Heraklion, Crete, Greece

Abstract

Controlled deposition of graphene in different orientations relative to the substrate is challenging and majority of existing deposition methods lead to sheets that lay flat on the substrate surface, limiting the potential applications in which the exposed sheet surface area and the atomically thin edges of graphene are exploited. Here we describe a simple and general solution-based methodology for the fabrication of random arrays of free-standing few-layer graphene (FLG) flakes on micro-spikes engraved on Si substrates. This should greatly benefit applications using free-standing graphene, such as in energy storage/conversion devices and bright electron sources. As a proof of concept, it is shown that the FLG sheets protruding on the top of micro-spikes are good electron emitters with turn-on fields as low as 2.3 V μm−1 and field enhancement of few thousands. The emission performance and long-term stability achieved by this hierarchical deposition process are superior to that of planar graphene sheets and demonstrate promise for applications. Mechanisms leading to formation of free-standing FLG flakes are discussed.

Graphical abstract: Free-standing graphene on microstructured silicon vertices for enhanced field emission properties

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Article information

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1039/C2NR30622K
Article type
Communication
Submitted
14 Mar 2012
Accepted
25 Mar 2012
First published
29 Mar 2012

Nanoscale, 2012,4, 3069-3074

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Free-standing graphene on microstructured silicon vertices for enhanced field emission properties

E. Stratakis, G. Eda, H. Yamaguchi, E. Kymakis, C. Fotakis and M. Chhowalla, Nanoscale, 2012, 4, 3069 DOI: 10.1039/C2NR30622K

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